You still misunderstand the definition of exploit. Every mission met the criteria for which Cryptic set forth. Missions were designed by players using Cryptic's own mission design parameters. Missions must be completed in order to receive credit for Officer Reports. Missions were completed and nowhere in those missions were exploits used. See my previous post to review examples of actual exploits. As a result of much community angst, Cryptic changed the criteria then changed a specific aspect of their own mechanic much as Blizzard would retune an easier encounter to be more difficult.

Whether or not you like those missions or the overall difficulty of those missions has no bearing on their validity. There is an effective cap on useful dilithium per day so the dilithium argument fails. There is an effective benchmark for minimum foundry mission time and also a benchmark for minimum completion time for fleet projects so the fleet mark argument fails. Any market flooded with goods will see a decrease in price as supply outbalances demand so the energy credit argument also fails.

I do challenge you, however, to quote where I state foundry authors could be considered an insignificant group. I do not believe you will be successful in locating such a sentiment. On the contrary, Cryptic would be mightily swayed by the opinion of specific foundry authors as you are creating supplimental content to ease their development burden and are doing so for zero remuneration.

I will concede the point on time limitations for the wrapper reward. However, the ability to rack up that many kills, loot, and ECs for little or no effort in that amount of time I think easily falls into the exploit arena from a developer perspective. It's the type of things developers battle all the time in MMOs.

With regard to the Foundry authors being an insignificant group, that was not aimed at you personally (my apologies), but it has been heavily inferred by a number of other posters on these forums as to why grinders are at the top of the list.

People who play grinders will usually 5-star the mission if they get good loot. Some story players often tend to reserve 5-star ratings for truly exceptional writing (not always, of course), and 4- or 3-star those that don't hit that for them (purely subjective). Having a 5-star story arc, no matter how well done it may be, will not be common.

The chaos about grinder missions and crying 'exploit' and the flamewar that ensued? Patched up. It's both a good thing and a bad thing.

It's a good thing because the anti-grinders got what they wanted: a fix for an exploit. Anything set to Timid creature fights back, and in the case of one of my favorites 'Easy Money,' that means you've got seven waves of 25 battleships per wave who will happily send high volumes of ordnance at you. The challenge rating of those missions just skyrocketed all the way up to 'bring my brown pants.'

The bad thing is that the wave of backlash from the pro-grinder crowd is gonna get nasty in a heartbeat. Hey, I like free, effortless rewards just as much as you do. Just gotta do it through talkie missions now. The loot drops can all come from anyplace else, and as far as the uncharted areas go (Delta Volanis and whatnot), that's still infinite from what I can see.

Just wait till you get into a mission with lots of reskinned battleships (a workaround for a different foundry lack of item) and they go bonkers when attacked instead of running away as they were originally scripted.

Just wait till you get into a mission with lots of reskinned battleships (a workaround for a different foundry lack of item) and they go bonkers when attacked instead of running away as they were originally scripted.

Hmmmm... that gives me an idea.

Is it gonna be an idea that'll make me regret fitting a Chroniton torp launcher on my ship... ?

We'll be watching for feedback about this change. In the end, players shouldn't expect to get "epic loots" from enemies that are not a challenge -- that just doesn't fit in with the spirit of the game.

However! One of the Foundry authors who follows me on Twitter sparked an interesting conversation about how this change will allow players to create a Borg mission where the Borg don't attack you until they feel they are threatened. I can think of a couple missions I've played where this could fit in quite nicely.

We'll be watching for feedback about this change. In the end, players shouldn't expect to get "epic loots" from enemies that are not a challenge -- that just doesn't fit in with the spirit of the game.

However! One of the Foundry authors who follows me on Twitter sparked an interesting conversation about how this change will allow players to create a Borg mission where the Borg don't attack you until they feel they are threatened. I can think of a couple missions I've played where this could fit in quite nicely.

Cheers,

Brandon =/\=

...whoa. This thread just got high-profile...

Also, think of what this could do for other kinds of pure-combat missions: I've been kicking around an idea of an 'arena' where you could just choose what mobs/ships you want to fight. Add in a concept of something like 'Starfleet / The Empire is conducting a test of its officers to see how well they can strategize in hostile situations' or even 'I love this hunting ground; they taught the bears how to use guns and everything!' and make it free access to any level? All I gotta do is figure out how to use the Foundry and publish it and a lot of people have their stress relief back. (Myself included.)